“Cressida, our senior midwife, told me you worked here; I hope that’s okay.”
I remember I’d given her my contact details at the flat and the Coyote when she was looking for your notes.
Bettina grinned at me and took over the drinks order I was doing, so that I could talk to William. I was perplexed that she wasn’t more surprised by a beautiful man’s coming to see me. I went down to the end of the bar and he followed me.
“I couldn’t find out who gave Tess the injection, or the other women; their notes have seemingly just disappeared without trace. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have offered to do it.”
But I’d already realized it would be impossible for him. If no one could find out who was with you when you gave birth to Xavier, an event covering at least a few hours, it would be impossible for him, without notes, to find out who gave you an injection, which presumably was quick and uneventful.
“I knew I’d let you down,” continued William. “So I did a bit of asking around at the genetic clinic. Pulled in a few favors. I’ve got you these.”
He handed me a packet of hospital notes as if giving me flowers. “Your shreds of proof, Bee.”
I saw the notes were Mitch’s.
“Mitch Flanagan is Kasia Lewski’s partner,” William said, and I realized how little I’d told him about my friendship with Kasia. “He isn’t a carrier of the cystic fibrosis gene.”
So Mitch had got himself tested—and clearly hadn’t told Kasia the results. I presumed that like Emilio he had assumed—or chosen to assume—that he wasn’t the father of her baby. I imagined his relief at the result, his get-out clause, turning Kasia into the trollop who’d tricked him. I wondered if he could really believe that.
From my silence and lack of excitement, William thought I hadn’t understood. “
Again he misinterpreted my silence. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you properly, supported you from the beginning. But you can take these to the police, can’t you? Or would you like me to?”
“It won’t do any good.”
He looked at me, perplexed.
“Kasia, his former partner, she’s the type of person people make mistakes about. The police will think that she was wrong about Mitch Flanagan being the father, or lied about it. Just like they did with my sister.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
But I did, because I myself had once been prejudiced against Kasia. I knew DI Haines would see her, as I once had, as a girl who most probably slept around, a girl who could easily be mistaken, or lie, about the father of her baby.
William’s pager went off, a strange sound among the conversations and clinking drinks at the bar. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
I remembered he had only twenty minutes to get back to the hospital.
“Will you make it?”
“Absolutely. I brought the bike.”
As he left, I saw Bettina grinning at me again. I returned her smile. Because despite the fact that his shreds of proof were worthless, I was buoyed up. For the first time, someone was on my side.
Bettina sent me home early, as if giving me a present for my smile.
When I got home, I found Kasia on her knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.
“What on earth are you doing?”
She looked up at me, face sweating. “They said it be good for baby; get in right position.” Your flat had quickly come to resemble hers, everything gleaming around the chips and the rust and the stains. “Anyway, I said I like cleaning.”
She told me that when she was a child, her mother worked long shifts at a factory. After school, Kasia would scrub and polish so that when her mother got home the apartment would sparkle for her. It’s a gift, Kasia’s cleaning.
I didn’t tell her that Mitch wasn’t a carrier of the CF gene. I hadn’t yet told her that Hattie’s baby had died. Last night I’d thought I was protecting her, but now I wondered if I was betraying her trust in me. I honestly didn’t know which was true.
“Here,” I said, handing her tickets. “I have something for you.”
She took the tickets from me, a little bemused.
“I couldn’t afford the air fare to Poland, so these are just coach tickets, six weeks after your baby is due. There’s one for each of us, the baby will travel free.”
I thought that she should take her baby to Poland to meet his grandparents, all four of them, and her uncles and aunts and cousins. She has a cat’s cradle of relations for this baby to be supported by. Mum and Dad both being only children meant we had no web of relations to fall back on. Our family was preshrunk before we were born.
Kasia was just staring at the tickets, uncharacteristically quiet.
